How To Lose Money In Two Easy Steps

1. Buy a Brand New House* in 1999

2. Try to sell the house in 2007

Fittingly, on the day our realtor came buy to show us the multiple columns of potential scenarios I threw up.

But that may have been some bad tuna.

(*Means we had the added pleasure of buying appliances, building a patio, upgrading anything, adding an addition because the empty house looked much bigger than the house with furniture in it, etc.)

Oh, it’s not all that dismal.  Had we been renting all this time we’d be out over $100,000 in rent.  At least the mortgage interest gave us tax breaks.  Had we bought later, the house would have cost more and we’d really be out more money, maybe so much that we’d owe money to the mortgage people as we handed the keys to someone new.  As it stands, if we can just rid ourselves of this house we’ll maybe get most of our downpayment back.

But you know what?  That sucks.  Years and years of real-estate flipping shows on HGTV, advice that real estate is the best way to build and maintain wealth, etc. and yet here we are hoping to get most of our downpayment back after eight freaking years.  And if you don’t look at all the five-digit costs of selling a house it might even look like a profit.  But selling a house costs FIVE DIGITS.

And our house’s value has declined in the past couple of years because we live in Michigan.

To which I say, “Pfuck you, Pfizer.  And may you rot in the deepest pits of hell, Comerica.”

Because, hello, who the hell wouldn’t want to live in Michigan?  And I’m only being mildly sarcastic.  Long-term?  Global warming?  Sure, we’re cold but we’re also a peninsula surrounded by the largest fresh water lakes in the world.  “Great Lakes, Great Times” might become “Great Lakes, and screw you water-scarce western areas it’s ours, all ours” in the decades ahead.